Review: Stroom Live
I've spent the last few weeks using a system from a small Canadian startup called Stroom, and I can assure you that I did live stream in 4K… from a cell phone.
Final Thoughts
Finally, Bernier offered a few things to say on how Stroom’s system has advantages over more traditional portable encoding solutions. “Mobile phones are often the first devices to commercially implement low-power, miniaturized hardware implementations of cutting edge technologies,” he explains. “Because of this, the Stroom platform will be able to take advantage of these technologies well before our competitors are able to put out new hardware implementing this technology.”
Bernier then went on to mention three specific up-and-coming technologies that will surely be implemented into “cheap” cellular phones before the video hardware makers get in on the action: HEVC, AV1, and 5G.
The Stroom platform doesn’t have all the flash and sizzle of beautiful interfaces and savvy marketing. It doesn’t have to. What the Stroom system offers is powerful, flexible streaming at the touch of a button with minimal hardware requirements. The biggest “hole” I found in their system initially was the fact that it relied on a smartphone. It wasn’t the hardware alone I worried about, but something more basic: the battery. Streaming in just 1080p sucked the fully charged Pixel down to nothing in less than an hour. For many events, this won’t do.
Fortunately, Bernier had a remedy for this also. He sent me a USB hub that allows you to input power from a portable power supply or wall plug. Adding that into the mix kept the phone at 100% during the entire stream.
Although Stroom doesn’t have the polish of similar live streaming solutions, it comes through where it counts: reliability, simplicity and—at $.15 per minute for the Stroom Live app—cost.